Harvest festival and the shawl dance

The sprightly chirp of birds was offset by Skye's mother throwing the chamber pot's contents at them. A screech of surprised mortification from below made it obvious that her mother had missed the birds completely. Instead she'd gotten someone on the street and they were now caught up in a verbal sparring match. Skye opted to use the rear exit rather than face what her mother had done to the cobbles and the unlucky woman.

The urge to give up and stay at home was always there, lingering under the surface every time she heard a little girl laugh or thought that she saw Orica. She didn't have time to properly grieve at this moment however as the Inn was completely full. Her satchel was full to the brim as she set off around the city, it seemed to her that everyone staying at the Inn was intent on running her into the ground with message deliveries and replies. By midday the Innkeeper sent her home and sent out one of his own sons to do the rest of the day's work. Better to keep her comfortable than letting her burn out.

Her work left her feeling tired and a little run down, but nonetheless she carried on. The Harvest Festival would have caught her by surprise if the gaggle of girls from the apartment below, hadn't invited her to dance with them the previous night. The festival celebrated the change in seasons and it also started off the social gatherings for the year...for both rich and poor.

A parade through all of the city districts with horse drawn carriages, gypsy troupes and even acrobats. The parade ended at the Golden Gates and then a procession led down the Grand Avenue to the Night Markets. The last events would take place there. A fan dance, a shawl dance and the Queen's Mages sending sparkles out into the harbour. Why end the events in the poorest parts of the city? It showed all of Dys' many facets and reminded everyone that they needed to work together to make the harvest a success. It also made them remember to help make their city prosper despite the class system.

There was a traditional fan dance from the younger gutter children, the fans having been handed out by the elderly 'Keepers'. To keep the fans intact and from children taking them home, there was old magic in the very strands. They would stay with the child until the end of the dance, then float back to the Keepers to be hidden away for another year. The fans themselves were lovely, covering the spectrum that nature deigned only give to the harvest time. Gallant golds, radiant reds and ornate oranges, with the occasional bold brown.

Skye hadn't really seen too many brown fans in the last few years, perhaps their Keepers had passed away without magical successors. It was a pity really, for the fan that she had used consistently whilst a little girl had been brown. It had depicted a woodland scene with gold threads outlining the silhouettes of deer, foxes and other such animals. She'd always marveled at its shimmering fabric whilst dancing, the gold threads had flashed in the night lights from the Markets.

But now she was older, she needed to do the shawl dance instead. All lower to middle class women took part in this. Only hand knitted or woven shawls in the harvest colours were permitted, many being handed down through the generations. Skye had saved up for a brand new one in her twelfth winter, their mother had burned the original in a fit of rage. Skye's grandmother had refused to lend Una money for drink, the shawl had suffered the rage which had been directed toward it instead of its creator. The piece of gold cloth had been turned into a pile of white ashes within an hour.

Skye's shawl was hand knitted from orange wool and slightly scratchy but she never wore it. The comfort factor was not an issue and its traditional motifs made it come alive. The knitter had chosen ears of wheat and flower patterns, perfect for a harvest shawl. As darkness fell, she pulled it out of her satchel and went down to the apartment below. Her brothers were already out in the Markets watching the procession come down the Avenue.

Condolences were whispered as the girls prepared their shawls for the night, dusting them off and repairing them if necessary. But it was all cut short as the sound of music and celebration started filtering through into the poorer parts of Dys. Despite herself, Skye felt her lips curl up into a faint smile as they jumped down the steps and practically ran to the Night Markets.

The drums were so close that the sound moved through her body and re-tuned the sad song in her heart. Copper clips with maple leaves decorating them were loaned to her as she passed a metal mage's stall. Slipping in between people as they gathered, she was almost breathless as she looked up and even spotted people leaning out of their windows to watch. Realising that she was almost out of time to prepare she hurriedly pushed the clips into her hair, getting another girl to check them over before she smiled genuinely.

The festivities were seeping into her very bones as her orange shawl fluttered alongside her. A small breeze had managed to weave its way through the throng of people and tickle the fabric to life. She loved the season of change and despite it being so close to her sister's death...she knew Orica would let her have this night off to kick up her heels.

Lanterns lit the area in harvest colours, turning her skin red one second and a darling yellow the next. This was the one night apart from Snow Fall and Snow Fall's Eve on which the thieves did not steal from others. Instead they joined in the festivities like regular people. The stalls and carts were all clustered together around the outside of the square to make room for both the crowd and the dancing. Despite this lack of space, the food stands were still mostly operational and selling things faster than they could make them. She pushed her way though to the front, cheeks slightly pink from the effort of simply getting past others.

The young woman watched from the edge as the children filed in from seemingly all directions with their fans in hand. For a moment she imagined Orica was there, twirling her red fan in the front row as she waited for musicians to start playing. Her sister's brown-black hair in a little plat that ran halfway down her back, dressed in a faded orange tunic as she moved out of the starting position. Skye must have been thinking back to last year's image of Orica in her memory, for a little boy leaped through Orica's body and she disintergrated like smoke in a soft breeze.

The change in drum beats made the children freeze in place as Skye felt the other girls push through the crowd so that they were around her and they all started to move into the square. She gripped her shawl high above her head as she ran between two rows of children. The children in question were moving in the opposite direction to her, creating an extremely fun optical illusion. The drums echoed her fast heart beats as she closed her eyes, leaping and twirling. The purpose of the dance was to symbolise that the young were restless, like harvest leaves being carried by the wind to far off places.

She was one of many restless leaves on the square, and yet she felt the sensation that she was being watched. Curiosity overcame common sense as she wondered if she should try to see whom was watching her. Her eyes opened mid-spin and somehow, in all the blur of motion and with so many people in the crowd...Noah stood out. Her cheeks flushed and her heart smacked into her ribs as the shawl dance was about to end. Row by row the young women laid down on the cobbles with their shawls over them. Skye did the same, struggling to keep still and to appear like a leaf, having finally settled in one place.

The applause made her jump, rolling up her shawl and getting to her feet. The moment she had shared with Noah stamping itself in both her heart and her brain. But her body shook as she felt just how much energy the short dance had taken from her. The effort to seem as light as a leaf was excessive, though others would think the girls were letting the movements flow out naturally. Her lungs were still trying to keep up, but she felt alive. Though later it would be bittersweet, she would take advantage of this incredible sensation while it lasted.

Skye half-turned to see Noah pushing through the crowd and she waited for him to reach her.
"How did I do?" her breathless question caused him to grin and wrap his arms around her smaller form.

"You were the best! The leaves in your hair were glowing and everything!" he blurted out before realising that she would think him biased.

"The leaves are on loan from Mina the metal mage, I'll return them before the night is done. But Noah...thank you." she said with a soft smile, only to see him look at the top of her head and laugh.

"What?" she asked, thinking that he'd put something in her hair.

"The leaves are glowing again, you're happy right now...aren't you?" he teased and she felt her cheeks turn bright red.

"Noah......!" she warned before he gave her a wink and took her hand, dragging her into the final procession to the harbour.

"This is your night, so enjoy it." he called out over the noise of other people's conversations.

It took very little time for people to move through the streets and find vantage points. Noah took her to their spot, the remnants of a stone wall that once ran along the harbour front. They were right next to the first pier, which was where one of the five mages would send out coloured sparkles. This had a purpose of course, for out in the bay there was a floating wood pyre. The legend went that whomever was first mage to light the pyre, would have incredibly good fortune until the following harvest celebration.

So as the first sparks shot out from the hands of hooded figures, the young woman was surprised. When she turned her head to see why Noah had tapped her shoulder, she certainly hadn't expected him to kiss her. Even so, the leaves in her short hair lit up the same moment as the pyre, the mage on pier two had managed to set it alight this year. Cheers errupted as Skye found herself pulling away from Noah to look at the flames lighting up the bay.